Obama's jobs plan: Can he create enough jobs to save his own?
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On Thursday evening, President Obama will command the attention of the full Congress and the nation in an address on the economy. The president aims to spur Congress into action and show voters once and for all that he has a plan to stimulate growth and spur job creation.
But with 14 months before the 2012 election, a combative Congress to work with and stubbornly high unemployment, there's skepticism as to what the president can do to create jobs - or to save his own.
Mr. Obama's plan could cost more than $400 billion. The White House hasn't officially released many specifics ahead of the president's speech, but White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Wednesday made clear the administration expects Congress to agree to at least some of his proposals, and to get results.
"These are the measures that... historically had bipartisan support, can be acted on very quickly by Congress, and can have a very quick and positive impact on the economy and on employment," he said.
The president's supporters are also hopeful. Asked whether a plan of about $300 billion in new stimulus would be bold enough, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told CBS News, "$300 billion is a lot of money, and if properly spent, it can make a tremendous difference."
Republicans, however, have said they flatly disagree with the president's approach and don't appear ready to entertain his proposals.
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"We certainly intend to listen politely to the recommendations the president has, but I think I can pretty confidently say everybody in the Republican Conference in the Senate thinks that we need to quit doing what we've been doing," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday. "Quit borrowing, quit spending, quit threatening to raise taxes, and quite having a big wet blanket on top of the private-sector economy by this explosion of regulations."
Instead of raising taxes, Mr. Obama will once again ask Congress to extend tax breaks - specifically, the payroll tax cut, which would cost about $120 billion. He's also expected to ask Congress to once again extend jobless benefits, at a cost of about $50 billion. The president will also call for a major school construction and infrastructure renovation project to the tune of $100 billion.
The president's plan could also include requests for a payroll tax cut for employers, aid for state and local governments, a new-hire tax credit, job training for long-term unemployed, the creation of an "infrastructure bank," a mortgage refinancing initiative for homeowners and other ideas.
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While a stimulus package in the hundreds of billions may be hard for Congress to swallow after a year more closely focused on reducing deficit spending, it's a far cry from the $787 billion package Congress passed in 2009.
"At best, this is the little brother of the stimulus package," Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University, told Hotsheet.
Baker added that the White House is aware it can't pass another large package through Congress. "It was a different environment [in 2009], he had more support in Congress, and that's pretty much evaporated," he said.
This package, Baker said, will probably have some stimulative effect in combination with actions from the Federal Rererve. "It will perhaps ameliorate conditions somewhat, but it's not going to a major turnaround," he said. The actions Baker thinks would be needed for a major turnaround are simply "not possible in these political conditions."
At this rate, the president could more effectively turn the economy around through executive actions rather than relying on Congress, Arterton added.
A day ahead of the president's speech, Republicans were already discounting it, making allusions to the 2009 Recovery Act.
"I appreciate the president's renewed focus on jobs, but the truth of the matter is we have very different opinions as to how to grow this economy and produce some sustainable jobs growth," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said. "Since the passage of stimulus plan... a net 1.7 million Americans are out of work."
Democrats have spent years defending the Recovery Act, pointing out that there weremore jobs added to the economy in 2010 than in the entirety of the Bush administration. Still, polls showed voters were unimpressed - in a January 2011 CBS News/ New York Times poll, 55 percent said the stimulus had no impact on the job situation - and Democrats have since dropped the word "stimulus" from their calls for job creation.
While Republicans seemingly succeeded in making "stimulus" a dirty word, Baker argued that the president could win public support this time around by offering a deal the GOP couldn't refuse.
That appears to be the White House's strategy.
"The measures he puts forward tomorrow night are the kinds of things that will help spur economic growth, that will lead to greater and faster job creation in the United States," Carney said Wednesday. "And those are the two things that Americans across the board are demanding. And they believe that Washington, of late, has -- rather than being helpful in achieving those goals, has been detrimental, especially this past summer during the debt ceiling fiasco. So he will be very aggressive in making that case."
If he wants to win re-election, though, Mr. Obama will have to do more than convince voters that Republicans are obstructing growth.
"The public has heard a great deal from the administration, from the president, about the importance of creating jobs over the years," Arterton said. "I think they're just about getting to the point where they don't want to her anymore. They want action, not just words."
Turning around the economy will be "absolutely critical" to Mr. Obama's chances for re-election, Arterton said. But the president will not only have to act, but act quickly. Studies suggest voters will start judging Mr. Obama's performance on the economy in the second quarter of 2012, Arterton said.
"He has nine months, until the end of May or June, to get the economy moving in a direction in way people can see there is progress," he said.
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Surveying the Republican side of the floor, the obstinate expressions on Cantor's, McConnell's, and Ryan's face were painfully noticeable. Whose pocket are they in? Who is going to slap those smug looks off their faces (figuratively of course)? And WHO is going to throw their ***** out of Congress?? I can't help but think that they are the real saboteurs in this mess.
Apart from that, their behavior towards the President was disrespectful and embarrassing to their party as well as to congress.
Why has no one addressed the fact that the rich and super-rich are not paying their fair share of taxes?
I especially appreciated his comment that the very rich and super-rich should be paying their fair share of taxes. I am a retired R.N., P.H.N and School Nurse. I pay my fair share of taxes, and I believe it is only logical...and American, that they pay theirs!
FOR FULL CHART SEE LINK ABOVE
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks the $1.2T Kid-Glove Treatment
By Erik Sherman | August 22, 2011 Everyone knows that the big Wall Street banks got bailed out of the mess they put the world's economy into. But even the infamous TARP funds were small beans
Banks doubled down on their borrowing by taking extra money through subsidiaries to bloat their low cost cash tills.
The fed kept easing standards for collateral until it was taking junk bonds against a promise of payment.
Some of the banks may have used the funds to bolster their profits because the cost of money was so cheap. compared to the $1.2 trillion that the Federal Reserve lent to financial institutions, both domestic and foreign, during the financial collapse, according to recently available data that Bloomberg analyzed. That's almost twice what the $700 billion TARP program managed.
Can anyone say "moral hazard"? One big danger stemming from government bailouts during the long financial freight-train wreck — a disaster that keeps on going — was that the Captains of Paper Industry would learn exactly the wrong lesson. Instead of being chastened by the wreckage they wrought, they'd see that, no matter how shortsighted and greedy they were, governments would bail them out. But that's exactly what happened. Only federal officials have been so embarrassed by how completely they've been used, they haven't wanted to admit it in public.
But the gross numbers alone don't put the extent of the Fed's bailout into perspective:
Given that half of the borrowers were from foreign-based banks, the Fed was rescuing the world, not the U.S.
At peak borrowing time, when the number hit $1.2 trillion, the amount was more than all the earnings of all federally-insured U.S. banks for the first decade of this century.
The Fed made some profit — $13 billion over 2.3 years, which works out to less than 0.5 percent interest per year. At the time, inter-bank rates were 3.8 percent, or more than seven times higher.
Were it up to the Fed, and not Congress, no one would ever have learned that such institutions as Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), Royal Bank of Scotland, Societe Generale (GLE), and UBS (UBSN) were among those bellying up to the cash bar. The bank regulatory agency didn't want any of them stigmatized for having borrowed money to cover their inept management practices.
Even as the inexpensive money flowed in, banks refused to make loans that would have helped jumpstart the economy, starting with small companies that don't have billions in the bank to invest.
Raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.1 percent and 3.1 percent
Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.6 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points
Increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 3.3 million, and
Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 1.6 million to 4.6 million compared with what would have occurred otherwise, as shown in Table 1 (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.)
Quite a reversal from GW Bush & crew's dismal job loss record (700,000+/month & 7.8million+ total) when they slinked out of Washington DC. While subsequent data indicates Bush's 2008 recession & economic mess was worse than originally estimated, things would have been far worse without Obama's 1st stimulus.
The full CBO report is at:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12185/05-25-ARRA.pdf
BUSH OWNS 7.8% of this
Correction-9.1%
Reagan had an unemployment rate that peaked at 10.2%, Bush lied about WMD. Great Depression, Savings & Loan disaster and Financial Meltdown 2007, Hoover, Reagan, Bush ALL GOP, THE GREEDY OIL PARTY!
Democrats only had a supermajority for 35 days. The chronology is as follows: In 2007 - 2008 the balance was 51-49 and a Republican president. After the 2009 election, the Minnesota Senate race was not decided until July 14, 2009 when Al Franken was sworn in. During that time, Norm Coleman was still serving in the Senate. So the balance was 59-41 for the first six months of 2009 until July 14th, when Franken was sworn in. But the Senate was on summer recess, from August 7th to September 8th, so there were only a total 10 working days of super majority during the summer. Six weeks later, on Aug 26, 2009, Kennedy died, putting the balance at 59-40. Kennedy's replacement was sworn in on September 25, 2009, making the majority 60-40 again. However the Senate Adjourned for the year on October 30th, only giving another 25 days of supermajority. Scott Brown was elected in November, so the total Number of days of Super Majority for Democrats was 35 days. During the last 10 years, Republicans controlled all three branches for 6 years, Democrats for 2. Out the last 10 years the Democrats could only overcome a Republican Filibuster for 35 days. And that's counting Lieberman who was not a real Democrat and not a reliable democratic vote as he joined Republican filibusters dozens of times.
Congress also has a 87% disapproval rating as of 9-2-2011.